


Night of The Swallow

by Flyology



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Regency, Angst, Arranged Marriage, Denial of Feelings, Eventual Romance, F/F, F/M, Friends to Lovers, Hurt/Comfort, I Tried, I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping, Mutual Pining, Secret Relationship, Sexual Tension, Sharing a Bed, War, maybe even smut?, read to find out
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-10-11
Updated: 2018-11-04
Packaged: 2019-07-29 10:49:58
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 8,002
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16262672
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Flyology/pseuds/Flyology
Summary: 1799 wasn't a good year for women, wizards, or anyone who would rather avoid death. The war continues past the battle of Hogwarts and in order to remain undercover, Snape must take a vow he would never have taken otherwise. A Regency romp with a side of angst.





	1. A Proposal

Prologue: A Proposal

1798, August

A crow’s caw sailed through the turbulent August air. The wind ruffled the leaves of the Forbidden Forest and whistled through the castles open windows. It struck him, suddenly, that he could have been gone by now, or rather that he should have been gone by now. This was Voldemort’s Britain, and he had no reason to survive under it. He could have gone to the Americas or to his cousin in Denmark, even the Tropics didn’t seem half bad.

"Are you listening, Severus?" Lucius Malfoy frowned over his teacup. That afternoon they were in Severus’s drawing room above the headmaster's study. The room Hadn’t been changed since Dumbledore's death, the upholstery the same pale blue, that clashed with the crimson curtains in a way that reminded him of the dead headmaster.

"Care to repeat yourself?" Severus Snape said, wrenching his attention back to the conversation. Lucius Malfoy’s attire was impeccable as ever, even enveloped in black. But, despite his outer grander, he was developing grey circles around his eyes, and grey hair peppered his once blond head. He was almost slumping over his lap on the sofa.

"We were speaking of the Prince estate," Malfoy leaned forward, hands clasped of his knee.

"Ah yes, Halclair Abbey, What of it?"

"How does bachelorhood suit you?" he said in a non-sequitur that took Snape at first by surprise.

"Pardon?" said Snape, though he wasn’t asking for amnesty, "what exactly are you implying?"

"That. . . you know, certain traditions ought to be followed, as they pertain to a man who has come into an inheritance. Severus. . . are you not want of a wife?" Malfoy said, coming to the point with more discomfort than he ought to. Snape nearly spit out his tea, but instead inhaled it, and doubled over coughing and laughing outright. Malfoy watched him with a smooth visage, a face very used to imparting bad news, though it did not seem that Snape had fully understood. Perhaps he thought himself the matchmaker, which was not the case.

"Lucius, you do amuse me," he said, regaining in his austere exterior. "Who put you up to this?"

Lucius opened his hands, "I am merely a concerned friend," and he smiled a politician's smile, "I have someone in mind with whom you would be compatible. As you know, married life has not been unkind to me, I would recommend it, my friend."

"You speak in nonsense. It's the Dark Lord, tell me I’m mistaken," snapped Snape. Malfoy’s fragile resolve began to break and he could not seem to keep up the pretense any longer. He sat there, for a good ten seconds, face suspended in pleasantry before slumping back over his teacup.

"He wanted me to convince you of it," he whispered to the gold rim.

"Why?" Snape asked, point blank.

"The Dark Lord does not reveal his motives."

"Not to you? Well count yourself as lucky," the window was pulling his eyes to the sky. The sun was setting on the other side of the castle on the closing day. What possible motive could he have- Snape couldn't think of it.

"There are several reasons, I believe," Lucius broke the silence, "the public doesn't trust him- doesn't trust Hogwarts or the ministry. As the headmaster, marrying could soften your image, make you seem... human."

"He has never been one to please the rabble," Snape hissed. This wouldn't make resistance any easier, The Dark Lord was sure to choose some woman who would be his willing spy.

Malfoy shook his head, "It's Selwyn. The Dark Lord wants him in his circle, and Selwyn’s daughter is near a spinster. Severus, The Dark Lord asks it of you and bids me convince you."

"Selwyn? Surely you do not mean Montague?"

"Augustus, the elder, has kept himself locked away in his Manor, not taking one side or another. If you were to wed his daughter it would link him to The Dark Lord," Malfoy took another sip of tea and deposited the cup onto the saucer, "The dark needs a new wealthy benefactor, and Selwyn is that person. There's also the bloodline to consider. Please, my friend."

Were they friends? Mr. Snape wouldn't have said he had any friends, but Lucius was the closest thing, and he would be punished if he failed. He considered whether he cared if Lucius was punished. He had lost his son, his dignity, and social status in the past two months. If Severus could help him by letting him have his way, he ought to. It was, of course, a terrible reason to take a wife. The idea of faking his own death and leaving the country tempted him more and more at the moment.

"And why would Mr. Selwyn or his daughter consent to such an arrangement?" he asked after some consideration.

“Severus, let me tell you of the young woman in question. Althea Selwyn is graceful, modest, clever enough to carry a conversation, and healthy as can be. The sort of wife I would have hoped...” this was at least in the region of truth. “Nevertheless, she has received few suitors, and-”

“Get to the point, Lucius. What is the witch’s defect?” he asked. No well-to-do young witch would marry him, even with his new-found fortune and his new authority as Headmaster. No, for anyone to marry him, that woman must be equally flawed, at least in the eyes of the Lord Voldemort.

* * *

 

Theda Selwyn was seven when she looked at her father and saw a coward. Her father had always preferred a quiet life. Late in the first wizarding war, a group of young men had come to their manor house in Kent. Theda had watched for under a rosebush when they stepped into the walled garden, with torn and bloody robes. A hiding place was all that they sought.

They were freedom fighters. But Her father had turned them away for fear of being caught with these dangerous people. Mr. Selwyn would always be a coward to Theda. They lived away from the country, and when the war came, the Selwyns kept to themselves.

Eighteen years later, and once again Mr. Selwyn was reaffirming his cowardice, in his armchair. Theda stood by the mantle with her hands folded as he informed her of the good word. Her mother sat across for him, ensconced in smoke and silent.

She wanted to spit in his face from across the dark and musty parlour, but that would only harm her chances of leaving his house. Mr. Selwyn, she realized was watching her for some sort of response. Theda bit her lower lip and watched the cloud of smoke that hid Mrs. Selwyn.

“I had thought it was a pretty fine offer,” said her father as if they were discussing real estate.

He was right, in a way, it was ‘a pretty fine offer’ for a useless daughter. Mr. Selwyn wouldn’t be like to benefit much from the arrangement, she thought, though it was a bit of a step up in society. The suiter, for all that he lacked, did not want for a fortune.

“Pretty fine, yes,” Theda agreed at last.

Mrs. Selwyn let pipe smoke out of her mouth with a sigh. “Althea, you may well consider this a final offer,” she said with a flourish of her pipe, which sent another spiral of smoke into the air. “Well, if you cannot make a good match, lord knows what will become of Madge.”

“Mother, it,” Theda said in mild protest.  

“You may not think so now, but come next year, and the year after that?”

Her mother was right. There were few options for someone like Theda, and few opportunities. This was her first real suiter, and she would be mad to turn him down. After all, the life of a governess did not appeal, though she had the appropriate education to do it. Other women could perhaps have lived their whole lives in the care of a family, but not Theda. In her father’s house, she would always be the deer that was eating his flowers.

“Tell Mr. Snape, that I will accept,” she said at last. “And do invite him to tea, as I think it would be customary to meet before he sends his man to draw up the settlement.”

Mr. Selwyn was not the sort of man to be overcome with happiness, so at this proclamation, he only nodded solemnly. Theda couldn’t say she had hoped for better. Her father dismissed her shortly thereafter, and Theda went to her rooms with embroidery and marriage clothes on her mind.

She would have three new day dresses, a new set of underclothes, and a wedding gown of course. With that, must come new shoes, and a bonnet, which they would get fitted for of Monday, she had no doubt. A blue dress, she thought, for good luck, one with a pretty apron front, and perhaps a pearl comb for the wedding day.

Theda spent the next week behind her garden walls. She had a rose bush to prune. A bright plot in an otherwise gloomy summer. At this time of August, there was little left to be done with an ornamental garden, aside from the day to day maintenance required of all things.

On the Tuesday after tea with Mr. Snape, Theda was in her garden once again. The sky was clear for once, and she sat reading on a blanket by a burbling stream when an unexpected visitor happened upon her.

Madge Selwyn crashed through the gate called out for Theda as soon as she came into view. Theda dropped her novel and hastened to her sister’s side. This was unexpected. Madge wrapped her golden hair in a red scarf and wore such a violently clashing shade of green, that it made Theda grin to see her.

“The academy could hardly contain me when I heard the news,” Madge exclaimed after recovering from her exertion. “My goodness I have missed you, and you cannot imagine my torment at gleaning the news for another.”

Theda stared at her younger sister for a moment in wonder and admiration. It had been nearly four months since Madge had been home. They sat together by the stream. Madge told Theda about her life at the academy, while Theda lamented that she could not join her.

“And this Mr. Snape,” Madge said when their conversation lulled, “well, I spoke to father when I got in, says he’s taken a liking to you.”

Theda’s eyes snapped to Madge’s. Her sister had obviously taken it in her interest to know as much as possible about her brother-in-law to be. Theda and Mr. Snape had sat in the drawing room, and even for a short while, without the housekeeper Lucy as a chaperone. He intrigued her, in a sense. One moment he was a perfect gentleman, and the next, curt. Their conversation had ranged from Shakespeare to herbology. Her favourite play was Hamlet, while his was Julius Caesar, but at least they agreed that tragedies were excellent.

“Did he say as much?”

“He did indeed, and more,” Madge said with a cheeky smile. “Do you find yourself so besotted?”

“I like him as well as anyone,” Theda replied, rather more briskly than she had intended.

“Damned by faint praise, is he?”

Theda snorted, but found it in herself to offer, “He is sophisticated, brilliant really, and I suppose, in possession of a liberal estate.”

“Haven't you heard of the Zabini engagement?” Madge smoothly changed the subject when she saw Theodosia was reticent to discuss the subject.

"How long did the last one last?" she asked digging the toe of her boot into the brook’s mud.

"There were others?"

"Oh, that cad Zabini has had many an _engagement_ ," she smirked.

"Well, Pansy Parkinson is to be his wife, and if you think she would become engaged to an unfaithful man, I cannot say that you know her," Madge said.

"Bet you it won't last the summer."    

"You right, they'll elope before summer's end!"

* * *

 

_**One Month Later:** _

_Announcing the Marriage of Mr. and Mrs. Severus Snape:_

_On Saturday morning Mr. Snape, headmaster of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry wed the formerly Miss Theodosia Selwyn, daughter to Augustus Selwyn. The wedding ceremony took place in Kent at the home of the bride per tradition._

_Mr. Snape has recently come into his inheritance of Halclair Abbey, the ancestral home of the Prince family. It was expected that he, as the new patriarch of Halclair, would take a wife. The couple has departed for the aforementioned Abbey for the duration of a fortnight before Mr. Snape resumes his work as Headmaster._


	2. A Stillness in Woe

_**Chapter One** _

 

_1799, April_

 

When the lock turned on the headmaster's study door Theda dropped the quill on her velum letter. He shouldn’t have been here from more than an hour, he had said he wouldn’t back till after dinner, but here he was.

Perhaps if she stood as still as possible behind the headmaster’s desk that he would go through to their chambers without noticing her. She watched him from the shadows as he removed his cloak and tossed it over the back of the sofa that faced the fireplace across from the desk.

It wasn’t that Theda made a habit of snooping around in her husband’s study while he was away, but she had this sense... She wasn’t a nosey person. Maybe the air in this castle was doing something to her. But she was sure there was something dark afoot here. What an obvious observation, that was, but she hadn’t seen it at first glance.

He stood for a minute in the doorway, his eyes trained on the window. He looked like his usual self- like death itself. Severus wore all black, but for the white of his cravat, which he always tied too tightly. His dark hair was pulled back by a silk ribbon today. But it was a pallor of cheeks and the way he held his wand, like a weapon.

“So... it has come to this?” he said. He still wasn’t looking at her, but by some magic, he must have sensed her.

"Good afternoon," she said, in a cheerful a tone as she could muster.

“Allegedly.” He removed his tricorn hat -quite the antiquity as far as Theda was concerned, but Severus was suspicious of the new tall hats.

"How was your day?" she asked, carefully neutral. Wasn’t he suspicious as to her presence in his office?

"Tolerable," he said curtly. “Why are you in my study?”

She folded her arms behind her back, “I ran out of letter paper.”

“ _ Really _ ,” he said. Theda was a terrible liar. It was to be expected that he would be disbelieving. There was just something about her husband’s gaze that made her incapable of falsehood.

“Well, I’m not a student, am I? I've got the right to go where I please,” she said, desperate to escape his disapproval. 

“You’re my wife.” He seemed to mean it not as an endearment but as a reminder. 

“Indeed?” she muttered. She snatched the sheet of vellum and made moves toward the staircase which led to their chambers. But before she could steal upstairs, he called her back.

"Will you be joining us at supper?"

She had hoped to avoid supper, but there was nothing for it. “Whatever you wish.”

They entered the Great hall with the students around six o’clock. Theda sat on Severus’ right, with Professor McGonagall to her other side.

The sky was cloudy and cloaked in grey overhead; even the floating candle flames couldn't fight the gloom. Hollow-eyed first years and stiff-lipped seventh years commenced eating and spoke in hurried whispers if they dared speak at all. This was not the Hogwarts Theda had imagined, nor was it the marvellous place Madge had spoken of with such fondness.

When she had come here in September, she hadn’t known what a school was meant to be, and she’d not questioned it; that was, until a day in January. It had been the first time she’d dared to leave the Headmaster’s quarters unaccompanied. Severus was out of the castle, and it had been the perfect opportunity for exploration.

The library had been a wonderful discovery for her, and the vast grounds even more so. At home, she had often ridden and walked on her parent's grounds. There weren’t any horses, only thestrals at Hogwarts, but it was fine to take a stroll about the lake.

But it didn’t take her long to stumble upon less pastoral scenes. Back in the castle, she had poked her head into what she’d believed to be an empty classroom. Less than a minute had passed. But it was an image that haunted her. A boy, his small form crumpled on the floor of the chamber, and another student loomed over him.

The older boy stammered, ‘crucio,’ as she’d watched from the door, frozen and mute. The child writhed and screamed, on his side. Amycus Carrow sat behind the desk, and looked on, calm as ever. When the older boy let up the torture he encouraged him to go again.

She had fled from there, like the coward she was and cried herself to sleep.  She had entered the underworld and willingly wedded its master.

"How is the book going?" Professor McGonagall asked, shaking her from her morbid thoughts. The Professor’s voice sounded louder than it was across the quiet hall. Eyes turned in their direction, and Theda looked at her plate.

"I find German difficult, it is the language I studied least. Still, Roth’s a brilliant writer," she said in a measured tone. She felt unsure on how to approach magical philosophy with McGonagall, and in truth, she had forgotten all about the book.

"What do you make of his argument?" she asked.

Why McGonagall speak to her? She had given her no reason to like her, and McGonagall hated Severus openly.

"I shall have to think it over. He reasons well, but his thesis still is on a philosophically shaky ground, I think," she said, stuffing a forkful of quail into her mouth so that she didn't have to go on.

Silence fell once again, and the rest of that meal tasted like sand in her mouth. It shouldn't have bothered her that her husband wasn't well liked, that the world they lived in now was grim and Spartan when she longed for Athens. Madge was learning with all the best magical scholars in Persia, while she was in this second rate a Greek tragedy.

000

Hermione slipped out of Grimmauld Place without anyone’s notice. And, under a disillusionment charm, she apparated.

The night was heavy with fog as darkness drew near over St James Park. Hermione watched from a bridge as the sun sunk below the treeline, gripped the railing to stop herself from rapping her nails on it. She glanced at her worn watch; eight o’clock. He was nearly a full hour late. A crow picked up its pace on the path below, as dusk began in earnest. Even muggles knew it wasn’t safe to be here this late. she shivered and pulled her silken shawl tight around her shoulders.

"Miss Granger?"

Hermione whirled around, finding Severus Snape standing behind her, on the other side of the bridge. He seemed haggard, dark circles surrounded his eyes, although he was otherwise unharmed. Instantly, relief flooded her.

"What kept you?" she whispered furiously.

"Calm yourself," he scowled.

"I’ll be calm when there is something to be calm about," she retorted sternly.

"I’m sure you will be," he said, scornful. 

"Do you have it?" she asked with furrowed brows. In response, he reached into his coat pocket and retrieved a parcel.

"It’s not all there, and not all written out," he said, "but the Order should find some useful details," he made to disapparate before Hermione could question him further. But she caught him by the shoulder. 

"Is Mrs. Snape well?" 

"The same as ever," he answered, his lips narrowing, "unscathed." 

"Good," Hermione said tersely, "I’ll see you on the third." 

She disappeared before he could respond.

Back at Grimmauld Place Hermione managed to sneak to her room undetected. Lighting a candle on her little desk, she set about sorting through the letters of stratagems, and plots. Most were of little import to her; an attack on a family of muggles, the whereabouts of a shipping house which housed mudbloods. All would be useful to someone, but she searched only for a mention of The Dark Lord himself. Anything that might be useful to his defeat and to Harry would do. 

Information was a valuable good and in this war, Hermione had a monopoly. She supplied, delivered and directed it, and most of the Order knew her only as Owl. But she was no owl, an owl was just system of delivery, and the birds weren’t in short supply. Still, if anyone wanted to send something too incriminating that gave it to Hermione. 

While scanning through a lengthy document on deatheater repositories, a yellowed corner of parchment caught her eye from under the stack. It was pure curiosity that made her pull it from underneath. 

_ I hope this letter finds you well or finds you at all. As you know, I fled some months ago after a brush with the ministry. The hippogriff is in the castle. _

_ Yours, Gred _

Her quill hovered over the parchment for a full minute as she considered her response, and whether she should respond at all. It seemed to her that only Fred would refer to himself as Gred, and if Snape had brought it to her she was apt to trust it.

_ Dear Sender, _

_ I am certainly willing to discuss matters with you. I find myself pleased to learn of your return, but uncertain of how this letter came into my possession. To be frank, I question the sender’s identity. There is a Tavern called ‘Parson’s.’ The hippogriff will fly free.  _

She wrote her letters in lemon juice; a stupidly simple method of encryption, and yet Deatheaters were loath to consider anything muggle, which made it effective. This may very well have been a ploy devised by the Deatheaters. Was it possible for them to have learned the Order’s cues? She would be surprised if they had, but that didn’t mean she would attend this meeting unprepared.

  
  


 


	3. The Night is Darkening

 

Grimmauld Place seemed empty when Hermione entered. Only Neville sat watch at the dinner table, a cup of tea clasped in his hands.

“You were out late,” he said when he saw her.

“My informant was late,” she said, leaning on the door frame.

“What jinx did you use on me in the first year?” he questioned her all the sudden.

“Excuse- Um... petrificus totalus?” she said, making her way through the room. Neville sighed in relief. “No imposter,” she added, showing him the palms of her gloved hands.

“Not today,” He said, with steel in his voice. Hermione would not have recognized this Neville as the boy she had jinxed in her first year at Hogwarts. And though she was sure she could out-duel him any day, he was sturdy, in stature and countenance. He and Hannah Abbott were the unofficial heads of the house.

“Has everyone turned in?” she asked as she dropped her cloak over the back of a chair.

“Ron and Ginny are at Shell Cottage for the night, and Harry and Luna are patrolling Nocturne Alley,” he told her.

"Has George been in?" she asked. She wanted to tell him about the letter, as long as he could keep his tongue. Three months after Fred's disappearance, he was taken for dead among, and they couldn't afford to look for him. If she could verify Fred's handwriting with someone, it would lessen the danger of meeting him.

"No," said Neville, "he's not scheduled to return from Dublin until Monday night."

"They sent George to help Mr. Lovegood?" That seemed rather hair-brained. Luna’s father printed the Order’s pamphlets as well as his own paper, the Quibbler from a safehouse in Dublin. He needed to be brought paper, food and other resources every month. George didn’t seem the best person to deal with Mr. Lovegood, but George was the only person they could spare. Mr. and Mrs. Weasley handled the getting of food and other essentials. Charlie was doing something that involved dragons, while Bill and Fleur were busy with housekeeping.

They sat back and to keep watch. Hermione made a mental list of everything she needed to do before Monday. She needed to

It seemed strange, in the midst of a war, to be thinking of Mondays and numbered lists. Harry said they should be fighting more, taking ground, orchestrating guerrilla action. After a fashion, he was right, but Hermione was not at a standstill.

Tonight she had done good work. Mrs. Zabini had been hard to secure as a spy, but she had finally come around. Pansy and Hermione had not been friends in school, but nevertheless, she was able to leverage the acquaintance to her advantage. Disillusioned with the deatheaters, it had only been a matter of getting the right letters to the right people.

As soon as the next Order meeting happened, Hermione would present her findings to Kingsley. A part of Hermione wanted to shout it from the terrace of Grimmauld Place, but for now, she would wait.

000

A purple sunrise tinged the sky outside the sitting room window. It gave the room the eerie glow of dawn, glimpsed, lavender, from between the maroon hangings.

Maroon- it was a lavish colour. Lavender was another matter, faded and dead. She had spent a year in lavender when she was too young to wear black.

Theda had risen too soon from left the bed she shared with Severus. She found him in the drawing room before the fire. Severus rarely stayed in their chambers past eight, which was when he began his paperwork. Theda usually spent her morning looking over letters and reading the paper.

If she had allowed herself to lie in past sunrise as a child, Mary would have burst into the bedroom to fling open the curtains and blind her. The sun could really blaze that bedroom in the morning. But Mary, her nursemaid, was a creature of dewy mornings, unlike Theda who never rose before the sun.

She took a seat on the blue satin settee across from Severus. She picked up her book. Severus didn't look up from his journal where he wrote with a worn eagles quill. They would have to wait another hour for breakfast to be served.

She skimmed over a chapter of Wicked Flora: The identification of organisms moste awful. Poisonous roots, berries, and seeds filled the pages. She flipped to her favourite section; fungi. The dangers of fungi were as numerous as the uses. A misidentification could be the difference between a meal and mortality, but she studied the pictures there with the wonder of a child.

She has always had an interest in the natural world. In the woods, there was nobody watching but the trees. There was a thrill of the danger inherent in the wilderness, but she delighted in it.

She glanced over the top of the book. Severus’s hair fell in front of his pale face, he seemed quite intent on his journal. She had half a mind to ask what he was writing, but she stayed quiet.

He was too thin. It showed in the hollow of his cheek, and the bones jutting out from his linen shirt. Where he was sharp, Theda was soft.

“You must have read through most of the library by now,” said Severus, glancing up from his journal. Could he tell when she was watching him?

“Certainly not, I should need another year to exhaust it,” she said.

Severus looked uncommonly disconcerted by she swift reply, “Yes, well...” A long silence followed before Severus said in a harsher tone; “They say reading muddles the sensible woman’s mind.”

“Would you prefer that I focused on more womanly arts? Should I fetch my knitting needles?” she replied, her tone was light.

“Would it not amuse you to learn a craft?” He studied her for a long moment over the tops his wire-framed reading glasses.

She smoothed her hands down the soft leather cover of her tome. “I suspect it would not, Though if that’s what you want-”

“It doesn’t concern me as long as I don’t have to wear your scarves.”

“That is a pity,” she said as she turned back to her book. “You would look fine in one.”

"Is that so?" he said, sounding almost amused.

She hadn't expected that to garner a response from him. For weeks he had been withdrawn and cagey, but now he was actually looking at her instead of right through.

"As I have not touched a needle in years, we never will be sure," she replied.

He had barely spoken a word to her for almost three days, ever since he had caught her in his office. Just because she had been curious about his missives. There was no fault in curiosity, and Theda wanted to know what went on in this school. But Severus must not see it that way.

"To be sure," he said. One moment he looked at ease, and the next, he grimaced. "I had forgotten, the Ministry has summoned me for some bothersome discourse, I suspect."

"Do you know what they are like to ask for?" she said.

"Perhaps that I sack Hagrid. They have been at that for years," he replied. Ending further discussion, Severus hastened to their chamber to dress. 

000

The corridors hummed with the murmur of students heading toward the great hall, but they quieted down whenever Theda too got near.  A flock of Gryffindor girls gave her a wide berth to her when they passed by and a first-year boy leaped out of her path. She regretted this already.

“Mrs. Snape?” Minerva McGonagall caught her on the marble staircase. She raised a single eyebrow with impressive control. Minerva wore her hair pulled in a tight coil at the base of her neck.

“Professor.” Theda fell into step with Minerva as they set off. The sun streamed in through the narrow windows and warmed the back of her neck. The exchanged chit chat, about the weather, the only thing they had in common.

"How have your classes been this year?" asked Theda during a lull.

“My first years are giving me trouble, as usual,” Minerva answered, "It's always this time of year, preparing for the exams and whatnot."

“I can only imagine," Theda said. She watched the students as they came through the entrance hall, their heads were down, and they talked in whispers. They had always been secondary to her solitary experience at Hogwarts. But she imagined them, as Minerva must see them, as the future of the Wizarding World.

"Every year I am certain I will have to fail them," she said as the came down the marble staircase.

This admission surprised Theda because Minerva was not known for her vulnerability. "Minvera, you are known for your exceptional students. I was not even educated here, and I knew that you are the best professor of transfiguration in Britain," she said, and she meant it.

"You flatter me," Minerva told her quickly.

"I never would," Theda insisted. "Everyone speaks well of you, even my uncle."

"Mr. Montague Selwyn?"

"The same."

“A higher-up in the Ministry, is he not?”

“The minister of the treasury, yes," Theda regretted having brought Uncle Selwyn into this.

“He was a Slytherin," she said, "even so, always a good student, always top of his class. I do hope he’s well."

“I’m afraid I can only speculate after his well being. We are not in close connection,” Theda said.

Professor McGonagall began to say something that Theda didn't catch. They were not two step into the Great Hall when Alecto Carrow came upon them.

She was a short woman with a smile that didn’t reach her wide amber eyes. She could have been beautiful with her chestnut hair and slight figure if she hadn’t been so unpleasant. She always gave Theda the distinct impression that she had just bit into stale sourdough.

“Where’s Snape?” Alecto made this demand with neither greeting nor preamble. “No. He’s nowhere to be found,” Alecto said with annoyance, “Well, I had in mind he would be with you.”

“I do not make a habit of keeping track of him, Professor.” In truth, Severus was at the Ministry, of course, but Theda thought he would rather keep his trips there quiet. And Alecto really had no business knowing that.

“I’m surprised.” Alecto smiled greasily, “you’ve little other occupation.” She sauntered off before Theda could snipe back, and took her seat next to Amicus. He was giving Alecto a look which made Theda shiver with revulsion.

000

Hermione waited by the door and pulled it open when she heard the faint ‘pop’ that announced him. He’d received her message.

“What’s so urgent?” he hissed once he'd closed the door.

“This,” she brandished a square of yellowed parchment in front of his beaky nose, “How did it come to you?” She had worried all weekend long about the nature of the note from Gred. If it was from him, she had to find him. It would be unthinkable to do anything less. 

He gave her a wholly bothered scowl as if she was being foolish. “The boy was foolhardy enough to send it from The Leaky Cauldron. It was intercepted, of course, but I got hold of it. I thought it would be of interest to you.”

“So it’s not -I don't know- a ruse, a plot, a scheme? Has he been in London for some time?” Her was whisper shrill. 

“Doubtful. Though you vocabulary is truly arresting,” he said. "I have not seen Mr. Weasley, but I rarely travel to Diagonally."

“Fine. I plan to present into Kingsley. What say you?” she snapped.

“I do not encourage you to be so cavalier with your intelligence. Do not reveal it to the entirety of the Order.”

“But, I mean, you really think it’s him?” Probabilities and scenarios ran through her mind, as disorganized as her notes and letters were becoming. Why would Fred send such a note rather than return to the stronghold? And more importantly, where had he been for the past months? One night, after Ron had brought a crate of fire whiskey back from a raid, he had drunkenly said that Fred had been captured. But she didn't believe that.

“Who else?” Severus pulled a watch out of his breast pocket. 

In the darkness and silence of the entranceway, Hermione felt a tentative smile break out across her face.

"Good," she said.

He shrugged and leaned a shoulder on the wall. "Has distance made your rejection trivial?"

"No! I-how did you find out about that?" Hermione said, breaking out of a whisper. 

"You shout your thoughts, Miss Granger," he replied,   

"That is no reason to pay them any mind," she replied, affronted. How many malapert thoughts had passed through her mind in his presence?

He shrugged, "it is pure habit." With that, Severus pushed the front door open and disapparated. 

"Take care," Hermione called after him. She wondered how he juggled his many conflicting charges. These past few months had been relatively quiet, but they were coming to something, she had felt it ever since Fred’s letter.

000

Rain buffeted the window panes while Theda readied herself for bed. Her dirty blonde hair was long and curly, so she always braided it at night in an attempt to keep it in check. She wrapped the braid into a cotton cap the tied around her head.

Once in bed, she lit a candle and picked up Wicked Flora commenced waiting. Severus had said not to wait up, and she never did, but tonight she felt an odd twist of worry in her navel.

After she had read two or three chapters, the door creaked and Severus came in. He gave her a cold look.

“I told you not to wait up.”

“I was not waiting,” she lied as she snapped her book shut.

Without reply, he went to the cabinet to remove his black Deatheaters robes. Theda rolled onto her side to give him privacy. She could still hear him rummaging in the closet. When had he changed into deatheater robes? He had left for the Ministry this morning wearing a black suit, he must have been summoned during a dinner when Theda was in the Great Hall.

A few moments later she felt his weight sink into the mattress beside her. Over their months of marriage, she had grown used to his weight, his warmth, on the other side of the bed. When she felt the world growing darker at every turn, the presence of another being comforted her. Only then could she lie down and sleep.

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So here is the chapter two of this story, so far I'm about ten chapters in, but madly editing most of them. Chapter three is pretty much done, so it should be up within the week. Thanks for reading!


	4. Midnight at Grimmauld

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for all the kudos! Everyone spurns on my editing :) I hope you enjoy this chapter.

Once again Hermione had fallen asleep at her desk, she cursed herself. She needed to be more careful when she had all her letters laid out in the open. It had been a close call, last week when she’d fallen asleep at her desk and Hannah had found while they were all there. At least Hannah could keep her mouth shut about what Hermione was doing with everyone’s mail.

Everyone in the house had turned in hours ago, and this was the only time she was certain she could do her work without disturbance. She picked up the letter she had been about to read when she fell asleep. But before she could get very far into the letter, a thump echoed through the floor.

She tensed, unannounced visitors were uncommon at Grimmauld Place. A scraping sound, this time much closer, was eerie in the sleeping house. She leapt to her feet with her wand at the ready.

A rattling breath reverberated through the empty house. She threw a shawl around her shoulders and ran down the stairwell. At the bottom of the stairs, she saw him. He wore all black and was draped over the hat stand. There was a wand gripped in his hand, and she could see some dark liquid gleaming against the wooden floorboards.

“Who goes there!” she said in a shrill whisper as she rushed to the man's side, unsure whether to help or harm him.

“I couldn’t…” his words were punctuated with heaving gasps, “return… in time.” Severus Snape raised his head from the hat stand, and Hermione rushed forward to help him. He managed to lift himself in time for Hermione to catch him under the arm.

“What happened?” she asked as she dragged him down the corridor. She didn't think of the danger of bringing him into the house. He was injured. She would mend him.

When he didn’t make a reply she sighed, he was in no condition to endure her interrogation. But even as they reached the kitchen Hermione kept having to bite her wayward tongue.

He shuddered with the aftereffects of the Cruciatus, and blood glistened on his vest. She dropped him into the nearest chair and hurried to the potions cabinet to retrieve Dittany and a Draught of Peace.

“Is that your blood?” she said, voice aquiver. Far past embarrassment in seeing bare skin, she didn’t wait for an answer to pull back the red cotton over the spot where it had soaked through. A deep gash ran from shoulder to clavicle, and from it, blood flowed. Dittany was the only ointment she knew would heal the wound. She scooped out some into her hands, but before she could apply it Snape grabbed the jar and pushed her hand away.

“I will do it,” Snape snapped, before hissing at the sting of the dittany on the wound. Hermione stood back and watched as he applied it to the injury. It looked week's old within seconds, but it was clear the scar was not going to fade.

“Are you alright?” she asked. He was buttoning his vest back over the bloody shirt. She watched him through weighed eyelids.

“It was little more than a scratch.”

“Ha. Tell me what happened. Did he torture you?” she asked, unable to contain her curiosity any longer.

“No. It was… a muggleborn,” he answered. Hermione dropped into the nearest kitchen chair and put her heavy head in her hands, her wild hair falling in front of her face.

“What now? Who were they?” she said to her lap. Her mind raced with possibilities. Had there been an attack?

“We have known for some time that I’m not secure in my position, but he made that clear tonight, all too clear. We were at a warehouse in Manchester. It housed muggleborns for-”

“Merlin,” she swore. He didn’t have to finish the sentence for her to know what he was going to say.

“For auction,” he said. "The Dark Lord has seen fit to take the women and young ones to this warehouse where the deatheaters auction them off,” he explained.

“Slaves,” she said dully, “I’m surprised it hasn’t happened before.” He didn’t say anything, but when she looked at him from under her curtain of hair his look confirmed it. “You didn’t have to… bid, did you?”

“No. One of the women tried to escape. She got ahold of a wand and aimed a curse at me before she could be detained. The Dark Lord wanted me to see-” Snape stopped short.

“Did you hear something?” she glanced askance about the dim kitchen. He held a finger to his lips, and a moment later they heard a small footstep, a yawn.

“The mudblood and the spy! Kreacher must not see! O’ do Kreacher’s eyes betray him!”

“Kreacher!” whispered Hermione, “show yourself at once.”

The decrepit elf slunk around the corner of the kitchen door and looked on the two with disgust. His pillowcase was pristine and his ear hair was as fluffy as it had ever been since the order had returned to Grimmauld Place. None of that changed the way he looked at her.

“O’ when Master Potter hears of this he will be much displeased,  methinks,” Kreacher grumbled, turning to go. Before he got more than a step down the corridor, Snape lunged out of his chair and caught him the back of his pillowcase.

“Listen here you filthy beast,” he hissed, “not a word of this meeting, do you hear me, elf? Not a word, that’s an order.”

“You traitor-  you mubblood hussy,” Kreacher snarled at Hermione as he struggled to escape Snape's grasp.

“She isn't that,” Snape said, his lip curled. "You won't tell anyone of this meeting, I order it."  Kreacher nodded, and Snape let him scurry into his pantry nest.

Hermione frowned, “don’t speak to him so. He doesn’t know any better, and he’s so loyal to Harry.”

"Didn't you hear how it speaks to you?" said Snape, heatedly.

"He doesn't know any better!" she said, "and anyway, he's right, I am a mudblood, and a hussy, and a c-"

"That's enough language from you," Severus said, interrupting her spiel.  “It's a small mercy that you haven’t freed him by now, what with you crusading for their cause,” Snape snapped.

“If you could only see how it’s exactly like the warehouse, and just as cruel. And none of us are free until those enslaved by the forces of-” she began, but she knew it was no use. She would never persuade him of this, and he wasn't the one whom she needed to convince.

“There are more pressing things to discuss,” he echoed her own thoughts.

“Right, I expect you bear grave news," Hermione said. She didn't know many things grimmer than the slave trade, but from the looks of it, it was only for lack of imagination.

“Quite,” he replied as he mended the tear she’d made in his shirt.

“What’s he done?”

He shook his head, “he told me to bring Theodosia to him. He said he had some purpose for her, though I cannot divine what that might be.”

Hermione sat silent for several seconds, trying to make sense of their strategy in light of this news.  “What did you do?” She needed Severus on the inside. It Voldemort found he out, then they would have no chance of retaking Hogwarts of The Ministry. But she couldn't allow an innocent to be hurt in the process, not if she could prevent it.

“I wouldn't allow it. I told him so, which resulted in this warehouse farce.” He gestured to his chest as if there was a clear line of logic between his wound and the dark lord’s request.

“Bring her here,” said Hermione quietly. Snape shook his head. “But Professor, we cannot allow her-or anyone- to be taken like that. It’s not right!”

“Keep your voice down. I will find another way.”

“I won’t let it happen! We can bring her here, get her out of the country. We can-” she babbled. The altruist who she thought had died in battle was raring to the challenge. She felt an odd solidarity with this woman whom she had never laid eyes on.

“I am aware that it’s dangerous, but it’s necessary if only to keep up the facade of my support long enough to overthrow him.”

“So you will simply let him take her, for god knows what purpose?”

“All I can do is delay the inevitable," he said. She understood what he meant. But she didn't want to accept it.

“But she’s only a squib, we can’t just let her go to him like a lamb to the slaughter!”

"He will not kill her, and if it means staying in his good graces for another year than it is worth the risk. I was foolish to deny him,” he said with a grim finality. She stared at him, he watched the burning embers in the hearth with not a shred of emotion on his face. To anyone else, he might have looked cruel, but she knew his secret. Dumbledore had passed that information to her before his death.

Something was coming together in her mind. The clock struck two in the morning, and before Severus could turn to leave, she took his hand.

"Hold out for as long as possible," she told him, "There is a way, but I will need time."

Snape nodded and saw himself out without a word.

000

When Severus returned to Hogwarts, he was already concocting a plan of action. A thousand variables spun in his mind, but of one thing. He was certain only of one thing, that if any plan was going to work it would have to come together in a very short span of time. But his thought process was ended when, in the fifth-floor corridor, Amycus Carrow wheeled around the corner. He dragged a sixth-year girl by her Hufflepuff-yellow sleeve. Severus stopped short.

"Found this one with another girl in that there alcove," said Amycus with callous glee. There was no sign of another young woman, but Amycus clarified, "ran off before I could catch ‘er."

The girl held one hand over her black hair in a vain attempt to keep it from coming loose. She was weepy as well, with big splotches of colour in both cheeks.

He had been tired, and his shoulder was stilling aching from the cutting curse. And so he had felt no interest in Amycus’s petty school discipline. "Return her to her dormitory," he said as he strode past, eager to get to bed before the sunrise.

As he slipped into bed, he remembered Miss Granger's courage. She looked at him with all the trust and respect he had never received from Dumbledore. If she said she needed time, he would give it to her.

 


End file.
